College History

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The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix opened its four-year medical education program in 2007. In 1992, though, downtown Phoenix was being utilized as a regional campus for the UA College of Medicine – Tucson, which was founded in 1967. The original program offered third- and fourth-year medical students the opportunity to complete their training at Phoenix-area hospitals.

And as early as 1983, Phoenix-area medical students at the UA College of Medicine were taking required clerkships in internal medicine, pediatrics, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology and family practice, as well as clinical electives.

In August 2004, the Arizona Board of Regents approved an agreement to expand the Phoenix program to a four-year program. An unprecedented statewide collaboration of the Arizona Board of Regents, the City of Phoenix, the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Phoenix-area teaching hospitals, guided by a governor-appointed commission, led to the establishment of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus downtown.

The property, donated by the City of Phoenix, was then the site of TGen and historic buildings that once housed Phoenix Union High School. Following extensive renovations, the buildings became home to the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, which admitted its first class of medical students in July 2007.

The Phoenix Biomedical Campus has grown quickly, now including the Arizona Biomedical Collaborative, a joint research facility with Arizona State University and expansions to the UA colleges of management, pharmacy, and public health. The Arizona Legislature allocated funds for the expansion of the biomedical campus in Phoenix, allowing for the construction of the Health Sciences Education Building which opened in 2012. That expansion has helped the university continue to address the critical need for physicians in Arizona. Looking toward the future, the campus continues to grow. In the fall of 2015, the University of Arizona Cancer Center at Dignity Health St. Joseph's opened its doors, and in February 2017 the Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building officially opened.